The Story of the Greeks

Page: 116

The men quickly carried him out of the temple, so that it should not be
defiled by death, and then they found that the reed with which he wrote
was hollow, and had contained a deadly drug. Demosthenes had taken the
poison, thinking that death would be better than prison.

The Athenians now saw that it would have been wiser to listen to the
cautious Phocion: so they set him at the head of their affairs, and
promised to obey him. Although honest, Phocion was not very clever, and
his caution little by little became cowardice.

In his fear of the Macedonians, he allowed them to have more and more
power; and Greece a few years later was entirely under the rule of
Antipater, the Macedonian governor.[Pg 260]

CVI. THE LAST OF THE ATHENIANS.

Antipater, although master of all Greece, did not treat the people
cruelly, for he was very anxious to secure friends who would help him to
keep his share of Alexander's realm.

He soon heard that Perdiccas was marching homeward with the infant king,
who was named, like his father, Alexander; and he knew that the general
wanted to place the child on the Macedonian throne. This plan was very
distasteful to Antipater. He was not at all afraid of the infant
Alexander, but he knew that Perdiccas would want to be regent, and he
wished that position himself.

Rather than give up his authority, Antipater decided to fight; and, as
many of Alexander's generals were dissatisfied, they all rose up in arms
at the same time, as we have seen.

Perdiccas was surrounded by enemies, but he faced them all bravely, and
even led an army into Egypt to subdue Ptolemy, his greatest foe. To
reach the enemy, the soldiers under Perdiccas were obliged to swim
across the Nile. Here so many of them were eaten up by huge crocodiles,
that the rest, angry with their general for leading them into such
danger, fell upon him and killed him.

Almost at the same time, Antipater died, leaving his son, Cas-san´der,
and his general, Pol-ys-per´chon, to quarrel over the government of
Macedon. Each gathered together an army, and tried to get as many
friends as possible, especially among the Greeks.[Pg 261]

The Athenians vainly tried to remain neutral during this quarrel; but in
the course of the war, Polysperchon came into their city, said that
Phocion and many other great citizens were siding with Cassander, and
condemned them to die by drinking poison brewed from the hemlock plant.

It seems, however, that there was not enough poison ready to kill them
all, so the jailer made Phocion give him some money to buy more. The
noble old man, forced to do as he was bidden, gave the necessary amount,
saying, "It seems that one cannot even die for nothing in Athens."

As he was the last really noted politician in the city, he has been
called the "Last of the Athenians." No one ever dared to uphold the
city's power after his death, or tried to help it win back its old
freedom.